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Post by Mike Royden on Oct 14, 2003 20:05:08 GMT
A ref on a Radio Caroline site mentions pirate TV broadcasts off Holland Sept 64.
Any idea what was broadcast? Pop promo's? Cheap US programmes? Before it was closed down.
I take it that the hare brained scheme to broadcast television via two planes, never got off the ground.
Would it have been feasable at the time?
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Post by Shaun Brennan on Oct 14, 2003 20:34:16 GMT
>A ref on a Radio Caroline site mentions pirate TV >broadcasts off Holland Sept 64.
>Any idea what was broadcast? Pop promo's? Cheap >US programmes? Before it was closed down.
These came from the REM (no relation) man-made island off the Dutch coast. Programming seems to have consisted of American film shows, with in-vision links from the announcers.
>I take it that the hare brained scheme to broadcast >television via two planes, never got off the ground.
>Would it have been feasable at the time?
Didn't happen, probably as a result of the usual Caroline lack-o-finances. But the technology had been used, succesfully, in the U.S. to broadcast educational programming (before PBS was around).
Shaun
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Post by Mike Royden on Oct 14, 2003 20:47:55 GMT
Any idea what was broadcast? Pop promo's? Cheap >US programmes? Before it was closed down.
These came from the REM (no relation) man-made island off the Dutch coast. Programming seems to have consisted of American film shows, with in-vision links from the announcers.
Doesn't sound very exciting, I was hoping for a cache of pop promo's.
Would it have been feasable at the time?
Didn't happen, probably as a result of the usual Caroline lack-o-finances. But the technology had been used, succesfully, in the U.S. to broadcast educational programming (before PBS was around
But surely it's unworkable because the British Government would have forced the planes out of UK airspace.
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Post by Shaun Brennan on Oct 15, 2003 1:44:54 GMT
>But surely it's unworkable because the British >Government would have forced the planes out of UK >airspace.
I think Ronan's plan was to have the planes stay in international airspace (presumably over the north sea), and take off / land in a friendly country on the European mainland. That was the theory, anyway-- the guy's great when it comes to ideas, but sometimes he does come across as spectacularly naive!
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Post by Mike Royden on Oct 15, 2003 8:17:45 GMT
>But surely it's unworkable because the British >Government would have forced the planes out of UK >airspace.
I think Ronan's plan was to have the planes stay in international airspace (presumably over the north sea), and take off / land in a friendly country on the European mainland. That was the theory, anyway-- the guy's great when it comes to ideas, but sometimes he does come across as spectacularly naive!
Imagine if it was workable, we might now have Easyjet television or Virgin television with planes bumping into each other, or even worse if Murdoch haven't gone down the expensive satellite route, Sky-aerovision, with his hundreds of planes flying around the UK
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Post by Laurence Piper on Oct 15, 2003 10:15:13 GMT
What an ingenious idea at least! Being someone who can recall the '60s radio pirates as a child, i'd never heard of a TELEVISION version though. I can't imagine that it would have been very feasible to show pop promos in '64 though - simply because such things were still in their infancy. There were a handful of filmed clips being produced for cinema use etc (in colour too) but they would have soon run aground through lack of material.
Incidentally - this has prompted another memory - does anyone recall seeing those early versions of what have to be called video jukeboxes? I saw one of these while on holiday with my parents on the Essex coast in '64 or '65. It was in an amusement arcade. It had a large screen (probably about 3ft x 3ft - big for those days) and you put your money in and it showed pop promo films. The two I recall most were ones of The Hollies (a mimed performance clip) and Jack The Ripper by Screaming Lord Sutch (where the song was acted out in kind of rock-horror fashion - definitely a precursor to Michael Jackson's Thriller 20 years before). I know there were short promos made for a similar use in the '40s of Jazz artists but this was the only time I saw their use in the '60s pop era. Wonder how long they lasted?
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Post by Mike Royden on Oct 15, 2003 12:09:24 GMT
Incidentally - this has prompted another memory - does anyone recall seeing those early versions of what have to be called video jukeboxes? I saw one of these while on holiday with my parents on the Essex coast in '64 or '65.
In 64 I lived in Deal,Kent and I remember seeing one of these one evening, in a cafe on the seafront.
it was a Juke Box with a small prob 10x12 b/w movie screen in the middle, which played the b/w clips. I can't remember now,
what the selection was,only a handful could be selected, you paid a bit more for one record, but all the clips I saw,
seemed to be the same as the tv. It was the only one I ever saw and haven't seen one since.
Their was a thread on this subject ages ago and I think they said, the clips were 8mm b/w films.
Hopefully the master prints exist somewhere.
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Post by William Martin on Oct 15, 2003 15:26:13 GMT
yes these films do turn up from time to time in both 8mm and 16mm but they are reverse prints for back prjection so will be mirrored if you project them on a screen, an pirate tv was around before that there were plans in the 1920s by various companies usualy j.l bairds to set up low def MW TV transmitters that had a very long range, german low def tv in the 1920s could be picked up in Russia.
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Post by Laurence Piper on Oct 15, 2003 21:46:07 GMT
Yes, the one I saw must have been back projection too. It was a larger screen though and the films were in colour. Glad to know that someone else experienced these too at the time though.
Incidentally, the Lord Sutch promo I saw turned up about a year ago or so in a BBC-1 documentary on his life (Jukebox Heroes or something?) The only thing was that the version they showed was only b/w. Wonder if the colour copy still survives? Good to see it again after all those years though - I nearly fell off my chair!
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Post by Simon Mclean on Oct 15, 2003 22:52:00 GMT
I believe these 'film jukeboxes' were rather popular in France in the 60s - I think they were called 'Scopiphones', or something like that.
As regards a more recent attempt at pirate TV, a London area broadcast of 'The Word' was interrupted for about ten minutes by 'Tip Top TV' in 1993 - a visual version of Radio Tip Top, a pirate station that ended up getting its own Radio 1 series in the mid-nineties. (LWT also did a legal Tip Top TV pilot, but I don't think any more was heard of it.)
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Post by Shaun Brennan on Oct 16, 2003 3:33:05 GMT
Laurence said...
>Incidentally - this has prompted another memory - >does anyone recall seeing those early versions of >what have to be called video jukeboxes?
Scopitones! Wonderful things-- there's a thriving network of scopi collectors out there, restoring the machines and hunting down the original films. As someone else said, they were very big in France, which is where most of the material was shot, but several U.S. and U.K. companies knocked out scopis. The "Jack The Ripper" reel states "filmed at De Lane Lea Studios." Anyone have info on who / where they were?
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Post by Shaun Brennan on Oct 16, 2003 3:36:41 GMT
Oops...forgot to mention that yep, the "Jack The Ripper" clip survives in colour. Somewhat washed out colour, but I'd assume it probably didn't look too wonderful back then! There's a whole bunch of Joe Meek artiste scopis...The Tornados, Alan Klein, Andy Cavell and, apparently, John Leyton and Heinz (...although I haven't seen visual evidence of the last 2).
Shaun
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Post by Laurence Piper on Oct 16, 2003 7:35:12 GMT
Thanks for the info Shaun! Very interesting! How / where did you manage to see / locate these films then? Are they 8mm or what? You seem to have located the Ripper film anyway - I do recall the colour being pretty vibrant at the time (maybe it was just that we only had b/w TV back then and so it would seem impressive!)
Presumably the masters would have been 16mm? I'd like to see a full list of the titles / artists - another valuable archive of pop acts, given the disappearance of so much music TV from the same era.
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Post by Simon Mclean on Oct 16, 2003 14:18:27 GMT
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Post by Shaun Brennan on Oct 16, 2003 15:24:56 GMT
>Thanks for the info Shaun! Very interesting! How / >where did you manage to see / locate these films >then? Are they 8mm or what? You seem to have >located the Ripper film anyway - I do recall the colour >being pretty vibrant at the time (maybe it was just >that we only had b/w TV back then and so it would >seem impressive!)
There's a lot of scopis floating about on the trading circuit. I guess that, with so many copies being struck at the time, the original prints are in the hands of a qhole bunch of people. I don't have the URL bookmarked, but if you do a google search on "Scopitone," it'll bring up a site which attempts to list everything that was produced (although it's definelty not complete, as I've tracked down some more French clips).
>Presumably the masters would have been 16mm?
Yeah, that sounds right; I've nabbed a couple of France Gall scopis from a French TV transmission, and they would appear to be sourced from the 16mm prints-- the difference in quality to the 8mm prints is pretty stunning. As is France Gall but...err..that's another story.
Shaun
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